Stallions subdue Wildcats in Dixon tny opener

Thursday

DIXON — Win or lose, Southwest coach Bev Marley will get what she wants out of the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic basketball tournament.

DIXON — Win or lose, Southwest coach Bev Marley will get what she wants out of the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic basketball tournament.

If the Stallions win, great.

But that isn’t Marley’s primary goal, which is to see the Stallions’ players improve by playing games over the holidays instead of just practicing — and sparingly at that. That’s why she agreed to be a late replacement for Jacksonville, which opted out of the tournament because too many of its players were out of town for the holidays.

And while winning isn’t No. 1, Marley will certainly take it, as she did Wednesday night as the Stallions beat Richlands 36-26 in the tournament’s opening round behind a game-high 19 points by Naya Burney.

Southwest (3-7) will play New Bern (2-11) at 6:30 p.m. tonight for the right to advance to the championship game. New Bern beat Pender 71-24. Richlands (3-5) will face Pender (0-10) at 2 p.m. in a losers’ bracket contest.

“It was OK, (but) 36 points, it’s hard to be happy with 36 points,” Marley said. “Defense picked up some tonight. I’m just really frustrated because we’re not doing what I’m trying to get them to execute.

“It’s just like little things, like an ant in a picnic. They’re trying to do some of the things, but we’re like one or two people away from getting really good execution. It always seems like one person is kind of falling out of it.”

That’s one reason why Marley’s focus isn’t on the immediate present of winning the tournament but on the future, which she hopes will include seeing her team improve as it heads into Coastal Plains 1-A Conference play.

Had Southwest not played in the tournament, the Stallions would have been off for the holidays for about two weeks, with only three practices in that span. Now they get three games as well as a practice.

“We’re using this as practice. I don’t care about winning. It’s just not that big a deal,” Marley said. “Game time is so much more valuable to us right now than practice time.”

For Richlands coach Mike Kelly, it was a frustrating game as the Wildcats more than held their own on the boards and trailed only 20-18 at halftime but scored just 8 points in the second half in falling to the Stallions for the third time this season.

“That’s been our problem all year,” he said. “We haven’t been able to score. We get decent shots in the paint and we can’t finish shots (or) you miss one shot and all of sudden we don’t want to shoot. That’s been our dilemma all year. No one wants to step up offensively.

“Defensively, we’ve held every team we’ve played in the 30s … for the most part. Clinton’s been averaging over 60 points a game and we held them to 33. … It’s just frustrating.”

Richlands actually led 10-8 after the opening quarter behind Kalina Taylor, who scored 6 of her 11 points in the opening eight minutes. But 3-pointers by Burney and Taylor Marley, who was plagued by foul problems, helped give the Stallions an 18-13 lead with 4:56 left in the opening half.

But the Wildcats rallied to within 20-18 at halftime.

The Stallions, however, took command with an 11-5 third quarter, with Burney sandwiching a three-point play and a layup around two jumpers by Rejanae Brooks for a 29-21 lead with 4:44 left. Richlands, which had 9 of its 29 turnovers in the third quarter, never got closer than six after that.

While “not unhappy or anything,” coach Marley, whose club committed 23 turnovers, is still waiting for her team to mesh.

“It’s just like tiny little things aren’t falling into place. I’m just kind of waiting to click. That’s one reason we did the tournament is to get more game time, try to get a little bit more confidence. People aren’t shooting need to be shooting.”